Mainstream media don't like Donald Trump

It must be true, because Harvard University says so. As reported by Heat Street, May 19, 2017 (links in original):

A major new study out of Harvard University has revealed the true extent of the mainstream media’s bias against Donald Trump.

Academics at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzed coverage from Trump’s first 100 days in office across 10 major TV and print outlets.

They found that the tone of some outlets was negative in as many as 98% of reports, significantly more hostile than the first 100 days of the three previous administrations:



The academics based their study on seven US outlets and three European ones.

In America they analyzed CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

They also took into account the BBC, the UK’s Financial Times and the German public broadcaster ARD.

Every outlet was negative more often than positive.

Only Fox News, which features some of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters and is often given special access to the President, even came close to positivity.

Fox was ranked 52% negative and 48% positive.

The study also divided news items across topics. On immigration, healthcare, and Russia, more than 85% of reports were negative.

On the economy, the proportion was more balanced – 54% negative to 46% positive:



The study highlighted one exception: Trump got overwhelmingly positive coverage for launching a cruise missile attack on Syria.

Around 80% of all reports were positive about that.

The picture was very different for other recent administrations. The study found that President Obama’s first 100 days got a good write-up overall – with 59% of reports positive.

Bill Clinton and George W Bush got overall negative coverage, it found, but to a much lesser extent than Trump. Clinton’s first 100 days got 40% positivity, while Bush’s got 43%:



Trump has repeatedly claimed that his treatment by the media is unprecedented in its hostility.

This study suggests that, at least when it comes to recent history, he’s right.

Click on the earlier link or here to see the original article News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days by Thomas E. Patterson of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, May 18, 2017.

See also Michael Goodwin's column American Journalism is Collapsing Before Our Eyes in the New York Post, August 21, 2016.

The mainstream media coverage of Donald Trump reminds me of a comment made by white liberal South African comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys in an interview with TVOntario early in 1988. The apartheid regime was still in power in South Africa, and Mr. Uys said that the media coverage of anti-apartheid Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu was so biased against him that if he walked on water, it would be reported as "Bishop Tutu cannot swim."

HT: Infogalactic News

Narcissists are attracted to positions of power--or is it the other way around?

I'm always struck by the number of politicians and people who run for political office--people who presume to be qualified to govern others--who can't govern themselves and have the nerve to run for office despite having huge skeletons in their closets (or sometimes in plain view). The recent examples of Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Anthony Weiner come to mind. Then, of course, there are those who run for and hold office to meet the demands of their own egos (examples too numerous to mention). News with Views commentator Dave Daubenmire puts it succinctly: "America is governed by sociopaths." The situation is no better in Canada (which is one of the reasons I've largely given up voting), but of course, we can't figure this out ourselves--we need a psychology professor to tell us. As reported by Andrea Hill of Postmedia News, August 16, 2013:

OTTAWA — As Sen. Pamela Wallin‘s damning expense audit becomes public knowledge, many Canadians have taken to social media and the op-ed pages of their local papers to express disgust at what they call the senator’s “sense of entitlement.”

Wallin — who is accused of improperly claiming more than $120,000 in travel expenses — has staunchly denied she feels any such thing.

“I do not have some sense of entitlement,” she told the CBC in June. “I didn’t deliberately set out to abuse this system in any way.”

She insists Senate rules about what can be claimed are unclear and that the audit process was “fundamentally flawed and unfair.”

But behaviour experts say it’s not unusual for people in positions of power to feel entitled.

“People in the Senate, in the Canadian Senate, are there because they’re being rewarded for a lifetime of service to Canada,” said Del Paulhus, a psychology professor at University of British Columbia who studies narcissism. “It seems that’s why they’re there: because they deserve to be there and they deserve to get all the perks.”

Paulhus said Wallin “absolutely” displayed a sense of entitlement by charging taxpayers for travel not directly related to Senate duties and that her behaviour is not surprising. After all, he said, Canada’s upper house — which is filled with successful people who are often told how important they are — breeds a culture of entitlement.

But Paulhus said some people are more likely than others to believe they deserve to use public funds for their own purposes.

Feelings of entitlement often come hand-in-hand with big egos, Paulhus said, and people who make their careers as television broadcasters — as Wallin did — could be more likely to fit that description.

And just as broadcast work draws people with a distorted sense of what they are owed, so too does the Senate, said Christian Jordan, a psychology professor and narcissism expert at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.

While he said there’s no reason to think the Senate as a whole has an inflated sense of entitlement, “there’s certainly evidence that narcissists are more likely to seek high-profile positions, be they celebrity positions or in politics, more than other people do.”

“And being in those positions leads people to feel a greater sense of entitlement and power as well,” he said.

Jordan said people with this attitude believe they deserve more than others and don’t feel bad about claiming what they believe to be rightfully theirs.

“It’s a route to get really what they are entitled to or what they deserve to have, and so they don’t really think about the repercussions of what that means for other people or for the public generally,” he said...

...But saying these politicians felt a sense of entitlement when they helped themselves to the public coffers doesn’t tell the whole story, said Frank Farley, a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and past-president of the American Psychological Association.

“It may be an ingredient in the recipe, but the driving force in the recipe is this deeply rooted risk tolerance quality that is demanded in the political life,” Farley said.

He said people who end up in politics are hardwired to take risks. After all, “if you’re a shrinking violet, to use that old phrase, you’re not going to make it to the top.”

Farley said a politician’s job involves speaking in public, engaging in public debate and suffering “the slings and arrows of criticism.” You need to be a risk taker to survive the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, Farley said, but there’s a “destructive side” to that behaviour, which can lead to actions like inappropriately claiming expenses...

As Thomas Sowell says, politicians who talk about being in "public service" are likely to end up thinking that the voters owe them something.

In order to discover what drives voter preferences...

...advanced brain research isn't necessary. The same information can be obtained just by asking women why they vote the way they do--which is why women should never have been allowed to vote.

Voters make decisions more on emotion than reason, author finds
Honest pitch will persuade quicker than facts, figures, even among sophisticated
David Zussman, Freelance
Published: Tuesday, March 04

...A recently published book authored by Drew Westen, titled The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, provides a new lens through which to analyze and speculate on voter behaviour...

In essence, Westen challenges the popular notion that voters are rational and cool headed in their assessment of political parties and individual candidates. Westen argues that when strategists "assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on the issues, they lose."

In other words, based on their MRI research, when voters are asked to choose between reason and emotion, they always choose the candidate or party that evokes the emotional response...